“I swear, I won’t tell anyone anything you don’t want them to know, but Scarlet, you have to tell me what’s going on. It’s my job to keep people safe and right now, I don’t even know what I’m up against.”
“All right.” I held up a hand and drew in a deep breath. “I’ll tell you what I know. Ever since I was little, I’ve been tuned in to the spirit world. It started with my cat. I can see ghosts and talk to them. I don’t go out of my way to look for them. Somehow they just find me.” I glanced over at Gwen.
Lucas followed my gaze and then jolted. “Wait, is there one here? Now?”
I flicked my eyes back to his and gave a slight nod.
“How—uh—” He scrubbed a hand over his squared jaw. “How are you able to see them? Did something happen to you?”
“There wasn’t some kind of Freaky Friday moment, if that’s what you mean.”
“Near death experience?” Lucas countered.
I shook my head.
“Wow.” Lucas backed up a step, his expression stunned. “I honestly don’t know what to say.”
“It’s a lot to take in. Trust me, there’s a reason I don’t go around broadcasting this to the entire neighborhood.”
I considered him for a moment, wondering what possessed me to even start this conversation in the first place. It had been years since the last time I’d confessed my so-called gift to someone. In that case, it had been to a long-time friend; Lucas was a virtual stranger.
“Right.” He bobbed his head.
“Listen, I know you probably think I’m nuts. I can’t—”
“No,” he interjected. “I don’t think that at all.”
I arched a brow. “You believe me?”
“Why would you lie?” He shrugged and pocketed his hands. “Like I said before, I’ve seen some weird things over the past three years. I’ve done some research into this stuff but there’s no firm expert on the matter. At least not that I’ve been able to find. Everyone has their own story and spin. It’s hard to know what’s real. Or, rather, who is real. A lot of these self-proclaimed psychics also have a horse in the race, you know? Books and TV shows to pitch or promote.”
I grimaced. “Trust me, I know. I’ve seen it all.”
“Are any of them real?”
“A few.” I shrugged one shoulder. “Most of them are full of it, though.”
“I figured.” He glanced over at the spot where Gwen hovered, his eyes slightly squinted. I suppressed a smile as Gwen fussed with her hair and licked her lips.
Lucas looked back at me and Gwen’s face fell.
“Listen, I don’t want to impose on you or anything, but what would you say to coming by the site tonight and reviewing the video footage?” He paused and then added. “Wait, would one even show up on a camera?”
“I’m not sure, actually. I’ve never tried to film a ghost before.”
“Worth a shot, right?”
I chewed on my lower lip for a moment, debating. I already knew the source of the problem. Granted, I didn’t know her name or what her connection was to the Lilac property.
Lucas smiled. “Come on, I’ll sweeten the deal and spring for a pizza. Your choice.”
I laughed. “Well, now that you threw in dinner …” I trailed off and found myself nodding.
“Seven work for you?” Lucas asked.
“Okay.” I waved a hand at the door. “Thanks for your help with this. It looks great.”
“No problem.” Lucas swung the door open and stepped outside, his back braced up against the boards. “See you tonight.”
“I’ll meet you at the Lilac House,” I told him as the door swung shut behind him. I watched from the front window as he climbed into his truck and took off down the road.
A small, wistful sigh reached my ears and I glanced over to find Gwen hovering beside me. “Sometimes I really hate being a ghost,” she said. “I’m missing out on all the fun.”
I smiled. Gwen didn’t hate being a ghost. She relished it. She loved being a fly on the wall and trading in secrets and gossip. “Trust me, Gwen, being human isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“I’m just jealous because you can talk to him,” Gwen said, pouting her lips. “He’s quite a fox. Don’t you think?”
I laughed. “I guess.”
Her thin eyebrows jerked up into sharp arches. “You guess?”
“What do you want me to say?” I abandoned the window and went to lock the front door of the shop. Technically speaking, I had another half an hour before the start of business and my stomach rumbled loudly, reminding me that I’d missed the opportunity to walk by Siren’s Song on my way back through town and hadn’t taken Lucas up on his offered muffin. There wasn’t time to run out for anything, but I had a few frozen waffles still hanging around in the freezer upstairs in my apartment. They couldn’t compete with fresh pastries and a vanilla latte, but they would have to do.
“What did you and Hayward find out last night?” I asked her. “You said Hayward was looking for me.”
“Not a whole lot. We couldn’t find her at the house. On the way out, we found a couple of ghosts who haunt that neighborhood but none of them knew anything. Strange, isn’t it? How could she have flown under the radar this long? That house has been sitting vacant for several years now. I mean, you saw it; if the neighbors didn’t pitch in to get the lawn services, the weeds would be up to the gutters by now!”
“It is strange,” I agreed. “I’ve met some ghosts who never venture from their hidey-holes, but other ghosts at least knew of their existence.”
“We’ll try again tonight while you’re on your date,” Gwen all but squealed as she followed after me.
“Date?” I laughed and shook my head. “There’s no way that is a date, Gwen. You’re way off base.”
Gwen persisted. “It sounds like a date. What are you going to wear?”
“We’re probably going to be scouring through video footage, probably stuck in the back of some cramped van, picking at cold pizza.”
“Sounds romantic!” she gushed. “Like something from a Bond flick!”
I smiled as I slowly shook my head. “Nothing could tear those rose colored glasses off of ya, huh, Gwen?”
“Come on, Scarlet. At least let me help you pick out something to wear!”
“Tell you what,” I said, pausing to unlock the door of my apartment. I turned to face her, one hand on the knob. “You let me have breakfast in peace and keep Flapjack and Hayward out of my hair today and I’ll let you pick out my entire outfit.”
She pumped her fist in victory. “Deal!”
As she started to float away, I called after her, “And I reserve the right to veto three outfits!”
I used all three vetoes but ended up wearing something that was halfway decent. Gwen selected a pair of dark-wash jeans and a free-flowing coral top that she insisted brought out the gold tones in my copper-brown hair, which I tied back in a loose ponytail. I ignored Gwen’s suggestions as I applied a minimal amount of makeup, and she pouted that I didn’t go full-blown beauty queen. I slipped on a pair of silver hoops at the last minute and added a pair of low kitten heels to get her to stop fussing. She promised to keep Hayward and Flapjack off my case in exchange for a play-by-play of the so-called date.
As promised, Lucas met me at the Lilac House, armed with a large pizza. “I did half cheese, half veggie,” he stated, holding up the box. “I wasn’t sure what you liked and didn’t get your phone number earlier.”
My cheeks flushed. “Veggie works for me.”
“Great.” He pointed across the extra-wide driveway at a van. “All my security stuff is set up in there, but I hate eating in the back. It’s cramped and the food smells stay forever. I thought we could eat inside the house.”
My stomach flip-flopped. Twenty-four hours ago, he’d pinned me down in the grass like a common criminal and now he wanted to have a civilized dinner with me? Was Gwen right? Was this a date?
I glanced up at the hou
se. The crew had only been working for a few days, but it already looked better from the outside. “I’d love to see inside,” I finally said.
Lucas smiled and bobbed his chin toward the front door. “Come on, then.”
The inside of the house was clearly mid-renovation. One half of the entryway was tiled while the other half was cluttered with boxes of tiles and a large bucket. The path to the kitchen was littered with a collection of power tools and sloppy paint cans. The air was stuffy and heavy with the scents of paint and freshly cut wood planks. By comparison, stepping into the kitchen was like entering an entirely different house. The renovations had already been completed and the room was staged for filming. It was homey and had a lived-in feel. A sheet of cookies sat on the center island and an assortment of dishes and cookbooks were strategically placed on the open shelving that flanked either side of the large farmhouse-style sink. Lush green plants sat in a collection in the corner and the chef’s stove was a thing of beauty.
Lucas set the pizza box on the island, shoving aside the tray of cookies. “They just filmed the kitchen reveal earlier today,” he said, glancing around the room. “It turned out pretty nice. Not really my style, but hey, to each their own, right?”
“Not your style?” I sputtered, unable to imagine someone not liking the kitchen design. It was stunning. How could he possibly find fault with the rich, dark-cherry cabinets and the polished quartz countertops?
“I’m more of a minimalist,” he answered with half of a shrug. He lifted the lid on the box and steam poured out, filling the already warm air with another burst of heat. He had good timing, I’d give him that. The pizza place was a few blocks away; he must have literally walked out the door with the pie at seven on the dot.
I grinned up at him as I hopped up onto one of the bar stools at the island. “A minimalist, huh? Is that code for bachelor pad with hand-me-down furniture and no art on the walls?”
He laughed as he took two plates from the shelves beside the sink and set one in front of me. “You think you’re pretty clever, huh?”
I shrugged, still smiling. “Maybe.” I reached forward and pulled out a large slice, lifting it to break the strings of melted cheese before I set it onto my plate. “You’re a jeans and a t-shirt kind of guy, keep your hair short, a little scruff. I imagine you spend a lot of time on the road, traveling for the show. You probably have a crash pad somewhere and there’d be no reason to keep more than the bare-bones basics. Two plates, cups, mugs, sets of silverware. A couple towels, change of sheets, clothes. Utilitarian.”
Lucas stared at me for a moment and then grabbed a slice for himself. He placed it on his plate and then plopped on the bar stool beside me, his body twisted to face me. His legs were long and lean, and had no issue whatsoever reaching the floor. “So you’re a mind reader in addition to these ghost skills?” he asked with a slight smile.
“Not exactly.” I laughed. “I just know the lifestyle. After college, I floated around for several years, never staying in one place longer than a few months. I’ve traveled to all fifty states, most of the provinces, Australia, New Zealand, all over Europe, South Africa, Japan, India.”
Lucas’s eyes were wide. “Impressive. We should compare passports one of these days.”
“Oh yeah? You’re a fellow travel junkie?”
He nodded and swallowed down a large bite. “I skipped the whole college thing. I went straight from high school to the Navy. I did ten years, so a lot of my travel was within that context, but once I got out, I backpacked through Europe. Bummed around for a little over a year before going home to Colorado. That’s where I was raised. I tried to stay still for a while, but it didn’t quite work out.”
A knowing smile crossed my lips. “The travel bug is a relentless little creature.”
Lucas returned my smile before taking another bite of his pizza. I studied his profile, suddenly seeing him in a new light. In my gallivanting, I’d met a lot of other wanderlust-stricken souls such as myself. There was a deeply rooted sense of camaraderie amongst world travelers, a web of shared experiences and familiar lifestyles that was hard to replicate in other social circles.
“What made you finally settle down here?” Lucas asked. “Ran out of places to go?”
I sighed and set down the scrap of pizza crust I’d been fidgeting with. “Ran out of money is more like it.”
Lucas chuckled. “Aha.”
“My parents helped fund my travels for the first few months, and then as I moved around, I got pretty good at picking up odd jobs. I stayed in hostels and cheap hotels. Nothing was extravagant, but I loved it. I’d work and explore for a few months and then move on to the next. My parents helped me out when I got into trouble. Which is more or less acceptable in your twenties, but at thirty, it’s less cute.” I laughed and then dabbed my lips with a paper napkin from a stack beside the pizza box. “Anyway, I was already planning to return home to Arizona and then my grandmother passed away, so that sped the process up a little bit. I came back to the States for the funeral and didn’t leave.”
Lucas’s smile drooped. “I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother.”
“Thank you. She was a firecracker.” I smiled fondly as a series of familiar memories looped through my mind like a carousel of faded images, frozen in time. “In her will, she set aside of sum of money for me to open my own flower shop. I’d always wanted to have my own florist business.”
“After taking the world by storm,” Lucas teased gently.
“Right.” I smiled and reached for another slice of pizza. “I don’t know why, really. I’ve always been drawn to plants and flowers. The smell of the earth and working with my hands, I guess. It’s a helluva lot better than being glued to a phone or computer all day in some office.”
Lucas tilted his head in agreement.
“It took about a year, but I worked as a waitress in Scottsdale, lived with my parents, and searched for a retail space. As much as I love the desert, I wanted a change of scenery.”
“Shocking,” he teased.
I smiled “I found the shop and apartment I’m leasing now and the price was right. I opened a little over four months ago.”
Lucas pushed aside his plate and wiped his hands, then balled the napkins up and tossed them onto the grease-soaked plate. “That travel bug making you itch yet?”
I tried to hide my smile but couldn’t help it. “Little bit.”
Lucas laughed. “Figured.”
With my hand on my stomach, I pushed away my plate. “I didn’t realize I was that hungry,” I said with a sheepish grin at the open pizza box, realizing I’d packed away half of the large pie. After my frozen-waffle breakfast, I’d been so busy that I hadn’t stopped for lunch or a snack. I tended to get lost in my work and forget to come up for air.
Lucas chuckled and polished off the last slice. “I’ll get an extra-large next time.”
Next time?
He stood and stretched his arms over his head. My gaze automatically flitted over his lean body, and heat rushed to my cheeks once again. “Ready to do some ghost busting?” he asked with a crooked grin down at me.
I shot to my feet and tossed my balled-up paper napkin onto my plate. “I’m ready, but just as a side note, I’m not planning on busting anything.”
Lucas grinned but I noticed he started humming the Ghostbusters theme song as he crossed the kitchen. He grabbed a set of keys, and headed toward the open arched doorway.
The night air was chilly but not too cold. It was nice compared to the stuffy house. Lucas led the way to the surveillance van and pulled open the sliding door. “After you,” he said, waving a hand.
I climbed in and marveled at the amount of room. It certainly wasn’t the cramped space I’d imagined. A long table with computer monitors and a few fold-up chairs ran the length of one side, leaving the rest open to move about.
“I’ve queued up the footage from the first vandalism on this screen,” he said, gesturing at the first monitor. “Then t
he incident from last night on this one.”
I nodded. “All right. Here goes nothing, right?”
“That’s encouraging.” He chuckled and leaned over the keyboard. “I’ll start the footage a few minutes before the incident. Nothing is triggered, no lights or anything, then all of a sudden, bam, out of nowhere, the window shatters.”
The footage reeled forward and for a few minutes, nothing happened, then I saw it.
I gasped when I realized what had happened.
“What? What do you see?” Lucas leaned closer, his eyes scanning back and forth, scouring every centimeter of the monitor.
I glanced at him and then leaned forward, making sure what I thought I saw was real. “You sure you want to know?”
Chapter 6
“What is it?” Lucas asked, leaning in closer toward the monitor as though he could see what I saw if he simply tried harder, or maybe squinted his eyes just right.
“It’s definitely a ghost problem.” I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, the ghost in the video was the same one who’d burst through my front door the day before. “What is it with this woman and breaking glass?” I muttered under my breath.
“What?”
I glanced at Lucas. “She’s the one who broke my door.”
Lucas’s thick eyebrows lifted. “At your shop?”
“Yeah.” I smoothed a hand over my hair. “See, in order to prevent, or at least help prevent, ghost overwhelm, I try to convince the local ghost population to come to a weekly meeting. A ghost support group, if you will.”
A bemused look crossed his face but he nodded for me to continue.
“Anyway, it’s on Sunday nights, and things were going fine until this woman—” I gestured at the screen, though Lucas couldn’t see her figure, “burst in, screaming about the construction. She told me that I have a week to stop the production and get everyone out, otherwise …” I let my words trail off.
The Ghost Hunter Next Door: A Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mystery (Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mysteries Book 1) Page 5